purist

I remember Blue Max having/playing 5 different records which had this Fuller Bros backing tune, the 3 mentioned above, plus (was it?) Love & Brotherhood " Sugar Pie Honey" on Chess, cant remember the other one tho'? Think it was a female vocal by an artist with two other known northern 45's - gosh its horrible getting old and your memory going ! There's another 3 "same difference" 45's - Stan Mitchell Quit Twisting My Arm = New Holidays My Baby Aint No Plaything = (cant remember, help somebody)

What about those who bought as they went along, through each decade, slowly adding to their collections, working at buying right & putting the effort in, going to the source, trading up etc. I doubt they've spent that much in real terms? To my mind if you were an active buyer in the 80's and 90's (pre returnees) and knew what you were buying then this is when records were at their cheapest ( compared to wages, cost of living etc) It's different if you're talking about starting from scratch now - a decent average playbox, say approx 300 records at a grand average += £300, 000, but that's the same if you compared starting fresh at the bottom in any field. There's some football clubs in this country that would run you 30 million + to buy, that a few years back you could have had for the price of a packet of fags.

How about " King For A Day / Angelina " Stewart Ames ? great shout on Toni Basil btw

Anything by The Magnificent Men, but especially Keep On Climbing & Forever Together. Staying with Capitol, The Outsiders made some great floor packing Northern tunes.

I might be wrong but think I bought it as a new release on an orange label, and it was quite a while before I saw one that was different?

The best advice I ever got came via a Guy record hunting tale. When he told me about how he'd got the various Stafford era acetates (M.Move, Backstreets, etc) he told me that when visiting george Mcgregor he'd taken him down to his basement and he'd got these acetates stuffed behind some water pipes. He ran them under the tap and played them, whilst still wet, and Guy said he was both thrilled and horrified in equal amounts. Thrilled at these awesome unknown tunes, but horrified at how George was treating them. When he asked George why he was so rough with these discs he said words to the effect of ' dont let them dry out, and damp them regularly. If theyre dirty wash them with soft washing soap'. Ever since then I damp my acetates regularly whenever I remember, and, touch wood, none has started to flake any worse than they were when i got them ( some were pretty bad and flaking a lot, and if they are too bad you just have to accept they cant be saved and bin them) I use old fashioned block soft soap ( the sort that comes in a bar that yer nan used for hand washing clothes with a washboard) and luke warm tap water to clean them, which I do when i first get them home, but hardly ever after ( unless there's some reason to clean them, but cant see what purpose regular cleaning serves ?) I think keeping them in card or paper sleeves, or wrapped in newspaper (as George McGregors were according to Guy) will help dry the moisture out of them, but its not really a hardship to damp them is it? I have always made myself sleeves out of card to fit the various oddball sizes, easiest is to cut down a 12" disco sleeve if you've got an 8" for example (yes this is where you insert your own funny one liner hth

My worst was a box that was approx a 10 inch cube. Rolling about inside were two single pages of newspaper scrunched up. I suppose you'd say they were each the size of an average egg. The only other thing in the box was the record - oh, and a large amount of air. No sleeve, no cardboard, no polystyrene shapes, nothing at all to stop the record moving about in the box. On the outside of the box was a large bootmark ( you could see the laceholes in the dirty impression) which was also deeply dented. This was partly on top of the customs charge label, which to me proved that whoever kicked this box had done so after the parcel was in the customs/UK postal systems care. Of course I didnt find any of this out until after I'd paid the additional customs charge, which from memory was about £ 35 on top of the £ 190 odd I'd paid for the record.. I photographed the packaging and the item - all 100+ pieces of it. I honestly didn't think a seven inch 45 could smash into so many small pieces. I got nowhere with the post office/customs, but did manage to get some money back through ebay/paypal. To crown matters off the exchange rate had fluctuated quite wildly, and because I'd charged paypal to my credit card and got stung on the dollar/pound exchange rate I lost even more. Think in the end I got back about 140, meaning I lost about £ 85, but on the plus side I had got a dented box for my money...... They say you can't put a price on memories......

Just a thought - you regularly see " will not ship to Italy" etc, but I've never yet seen anyone write on their ad "will not ship to U.K. " anybody ? (my point being it's unfair to lump us Brits in with other countries with problematic postal services - or dodgy buyers. )

Is it just me that thinks there's a similarity between Servicemen's "Sweet Magic" and The Volumes " Just Can't Help Myself" ? I played them one after the other when out dj'ing years ago and it hit me there and then..... no ? just me then. ah well, I'll get my coat.....

I'm not sure if there was more than one group that used the name BLACK MAGIC but the one I'm interested in is the one which contained Marva Holiday (a.k.a.Mary Holiday) and Jerry Peters, both of whom have had records spun on our scene as solo artists of course. I've found info on an album on ATCO recorded in the late 60's, which didn't get released until early 1970. I remember a disco era poppy soul dance number on AVCO "Hey Boy Come & Get It" ( think this was an answer song to her girl ?) WHICH DID QUITE WELL IN THE NIGHT CLUBS IN THE MID 70'S, but didnt AVCO have a group called BLUE MAGIC. Was Blue a spin off group from Black ? Has anybody got a line up for Blue Magic ? any help gratefully recieved

Fairly sure I've got a full set of Jayboys so if you get stuck you can always give me a shout (not 100% sure about the final 3 releases, and I only collected the singles, not the albums)

Not 100% but think I saw the Midnite ( bullet) on a Canadian label? what about things like jackie robinson pussyfooter ? did that style of song ever get out of the euro zone ?

Midnight got an Australian release. Can you please help out us thickos and explain what you mean by Euro-Only, do you mean that the record only got released in europe somewhere but not in the rest of the world, or do you mean artists of European extraction. And when you say 70's do you mean released in the 70's (but possibly recorded earlier like many songs that got released due to northern demand) or do you only mean tracks actually recorded in the 70's and released in the 70's ? Would say a Uk released Motown track that never saw light of day anywhere else in the world qualify ? I'm thinking of that lovely dancer by Mary Wilson "You're The Light That Guides My Way ", which as far as I know only got a 45 here ? sorry for being thick

it's been a few years since I did it, but from memory it's basically just one long road once you get clear of the city (ies of L.A.) through the desert with a couple of tourist type places for stops ( until you get quite close to Vegas, then there's a small town, but it's only bars, food, gambling type places) The very first time we drove it we were advised to take extra drinking water with us and there was this one long slow climb where they advised you to switch off your air con (and any other unnecessary electrical drains) which was blooming horrible the first time we did it as it was at a hot time of year ( dont remember it even the following times I did it, so maybe it's only miserable if you're going when it's at it's hottest?) For some reason the number of nine miles sticks in my mind, which driving at 50ish seemed to take forever to get to the peak. My shirt was wet through - that I do remember clearly, and the car slowing down noticeably as we reached the top. They have helicopter patrols watching this road for overheating & breakdowns, speeders etc. Having said all that I enjoyed the journey so much I made sure I did it again when I had the chance, and even took my son on a later trip. After all how many times in your life do you get the chance to drive through what is wilderness ? and there is a certain beauty to the scrub and mountains. I've just thought it's 16-17 years since I last did it, so things may well be different now, cars have obviously improved and perhaps somebody like Des Parker has found an off the beaten track desert village where the local 45 collector has amassed 100, 000 soul 45's, but somehow I doubt it. Don't worry I'm sure you'll find plenty of vinyl hunting to interest you in and around the two cities, just enjoy the journey for what it is and do your homework as much as you can before you go ( my personal bug bear is travelling to see records while you are there -and in the US they dont consider distances large as we do-and when yo get there the owner is away, or you've gone on their day off etc that's what drives me mad. You cant have too many contacts !!) hth, doesnt sound like it will much, sorry.

thanks for that (for once I bought the right one then mind, it owes me nowt the times I've played it over the years, both sides)

Is there any appreciable difference between issues and demo's ? Always prefered this to the unreleased Eddie H version. Great flipside too !

Sorry cant help on these specific 45's. Have you tried the various label discography sites ? it's not really my thing (dates) but I have noticed the folk who make these sites do seem to like to list the dates of release...just a thought?

how much ? ( if you dont mind me asking )

I bought Gashers Australian copy for my RCA collection. Think I saw Chris Anderton with a copy, try him? ( def saw it listed very recently, probably on here, pretty sure there were two copies, one on the regular label and one on the Aussie RCA - which was why it caught my eye ) if it wasn't Chris, then it might have been Steve Plumb. Hmm, sounds more like Steve than Chris now I've said it....

That would be great Chalky, I've wanted to see that footage for ages but didnt want to hassle you (not my style ) I think everybody who was at the Stables on the first nite he performed will forever remember how he blew everybody away, and unlike so many of the performers who've come over he still has that beautiful voice (the fact that he's not just a great singer, but a really nice man is yet another reason I think we all took to Joe immediately) You should be rightly proud of what you achieved when you got them over !

Thank you so much for sharing this footage. You've made my week month !

Joe Buckman - Right Now / Til The End Of Time - Sepia (think the label number is 3 from memory ? ) Willie Kendricks - Give Me Lots Of Lovin / You Can't Bypass Love - RCA Victor 47-8947 (the WDJ ) lots of Detroit & Pied Piper things are double headers, just find the cheaper ones if that's your style. hth

I'm not great at prices because most of my records were bought in the last century so if this is more than £ 30 then I'm sorry. One side's a Stomper (RA) and t'other (HB) is more in the Stafford style with a slight but catchy Latin feel Tony Amaro & Chariots - Runnin Around / Hey Baby - Loma 2068.

Not sure when it would have been, maybe 10 years back (?) when this blew up with the dance floor and we were hearing it everywhere, but even back then I never knew whether folk reckoned there was any difference between the two releases? Obviously they had different flipsides, but is one any more desirable than the other ? does one sell for more ? which is the rarest format ? Am I right in presuming there's issues and demo's for both numbers ? Pressed from the same masters ? Anybody know why they issued it again so close to the first release ? ( gw 38 I've seen listed as June 1966 release, with gw 44 as an October release ) Always thought C.O.D. was a great track btw